


To Any Lengths

by sagansjagger



Series: She was Certainly the Spark for All I've Done [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Bad Parent Emilie Agreste, Bad Parent Gabriel Agreste, Bad Parenting, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Infertility, Manipulation, Manipulative Relationship, Peacock Miraculous, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24509401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagansjagger/pseuds/sagansjagger
Summary: “Does this mean...” Gabriel started, and he sounded so bland, so incredibly neutral, so not affected that Emilie tuned him out to battle her own grief-beast. She turned her head to look at him, focusing on his smooth and disinterested face, and knew she would never be able to explain to him her yearning for a life she would never have.Gabriel always wanted to give her whatever she desired. But not this.---Leaning she's infertile after struggling to conceive due to wounds on her body from the peacock miraculous, Emilie Agreste will go to any lengths to acquire a baby. Including pressuring her sister to give up one of her twins.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Emilie Agreste, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Emilie Agreste & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Emilie Agreste & Amélie Graham de Vanily, Emilie Agreste & Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth, Emilie Agreste/Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth
Series: She was Certainly the Spark for All I've Done [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710568
Comments: 112
Kudos: 249





	To Any Lengths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SteelBlaidd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteelBlaidd/gifts).



“I am sorry to tell you this,” the doctor said, addressing the two Agrestes, “but Mrs. Agreste is infertile.”

Emilie gasped, clutching at Gabriel’s hand. He didn’t offer it to her, but she held it anyway. “I-Infertile?” she said, tears already stinging her eyes and threatening to roll down her cheeks to land on the table she lay supine on. Gabriel wouldn’t like the show of weakness. But he didn’t like anything about their trying for a baby, so she allowed herself this one indulgence.

‘Infertile.’ The word was not a clarion call. It was not clear; it was not shrill. Thinking the word ‘infertile’ was like walking through tar, feet being sucked down with every step. ‘Infertile’ filled Emilie’s mouth, choking her with its bitterness.

Her vision blackened at the edges. The doctor and Gabriel faded from her awareness, which narrowed down to the wand moving through slime across her flat belly. She barely heard herself saying the words, “B-But how can that be?” 

“Your uterus is…” the doctor started, turning a monitor screen to them. “Well, it’s twisted. I’ve never seen anything like it. See for yourself.”

He showed her and her husband a grey blob that Emilie couldn’t possibly understand. It was the ultrasound, which was uncomfortable. Yet she had lain through it with a grimace, despite knowing there was little hope of a baby showing up.

“Does this mean...” Gabriel started, and he sounded so bland, so incredibly neutral, so not affected that Emilie tuned him out to battle her own grief-beast. She turned her head to look at him, focusing on his smooth and disinterested face, and knew she would never be able to explain to him her yearning for a life she would never have.

Gabriel always wanted to give her whatever she desired. But not this.

The news still hadn’t sunken in. _Infertile,_ Emilie thought, trying out the word in her head, as if by repeating the hated term she’d better be able to process what it meant. _Infertile. Infertile._

_I’m infertile._

She knew the cause was her use of the broken peacock miraculous. Emilie could smell magic all over this. Wounds from the miraculous afflicted her own body. 

And yet she still kept using the jewel. The allure of power was too much to resist. At first, she created senticreatures to serve her and Gabriel around the house. They were cute, cuddly. Like her very own children. 

But then, she found she could help people with them. Specifically, kids. Emilie made imaginary friends for anyone who wanted them.

She glared at the doctor. She glared at Gabriel. She glared at the ultrasound.

Emilie was a Graham de Vanily. She always got what she wanted.

And she wouldn’t let a little thing like infertility stop her.

***

“Hear me out,” Emilie said, sipping her tea at her sister’s house. She couldn’t help but stare at Amelie’s swollen belly with envy and a burning longing. “You don’t want twins. They’ll be too much for you.”

“Yes,” Amelie said, her lips twisted into a moue of disgust. “But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to just _give_ you one. These are my sons!”

“Of course,” Emilie said smoothly, her tone contradicting the roiling in her childless stomach. She gripped her stylish blazer under the table at the waist, bunching the fabric in her fingers. “But listen, Amelie. Our sons can be raised close together, as cousins. We’re both in London, with no plans to move.”

“Sunshine,” Amelie said, frowning at Emilie. “You know I’m devastated for you. I really am. But... A baby is not just something you give away.”

“I know,” Emilie said, tears welling in her eyes. They spilled down her cheeks elegantly, one tear at a time. “I-I just thought… With as long as it took you to conceive and as many miscarriages as you’ve had, you’d understand why I… Why I want you to… I’m sorry, Amelie. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, you--”

“I was needlessly cruel,” Emilie said, her breath hitching. “Of course you can’t help me. No one can. I’ll die childless. Please, raise your sons, and don’t worry about me.”

“Now you’re being overdramatic,” Amelie said, though her gaze softened. She took her sister’s hand. “I do want to help you, Emilie. I do. But I just can’t…”

Emilie tuned her out. Every time her sister denied her, another nail embedded itself in her heart. And she was tired of swallowing her despair around Gabriel. She walked on eggshells around him these days, so tempted to dissolve into tears at any given moment--and knowing he wouldn’t approve. The man had never been able to handle displays of emotion, especially not ones so fraught as grief and mourning.

Amelie’s lips were moving, but Emilie couldn’t bring herself to focus on the words. For the sake of her sister, she tried. “... understand, don’t you?”

“I do understand,” Emilie said, her fingers tightening on the handle of her teacup. Her other hand clawed at her empty belly, as if by scratching the fabric of her blazer, she could make a baby magically appear there.

Magic. She could make a senticreature. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of the power of the peacock miraculous before. But the effort would surely kill her. She wouldn’t be around to raise any son she could make.

A manic laugh bubbled up from the pit of her vacant stomach and past her lips, shocking Amelie. The woman gasped, her hand coming up to her mouth. “Emilie,” her sister said, “that’s entirely inappropriate.”

“Who are you to tell me that the way I express my grief is inappropriate?” Emilie said coolly, eyeing the other woman. “As I recall, you terrified your husband by breaking things when trying for your twins.”

Amelie’s eyes narrowed. “That’s completely different.”

“And wasn’t I there for you, Amelie?” Emilie said, sniffling. She screwed her eyes shut, trying to stem the flow of tears. “Wasn’t I there, consoling you every step of the way? At every failed pregnancy test?”

Stony silence met Emilie. She opened her eyes. Amelie was staring at her with a perfect blend of horror and sorrow.

“I’m sorry,” Emilie whispered, burying her face in her hands. “I just want a b-baby so badly!”

Amelie patted her on the shoulder. “I… I’ll see what I can do.”

***

Emilie was on cloud nine. She floated up the stairs leading to her and Gabriel’s apartment, her fingers barely alighting on the banister with the peeling paint. 

Amelie had agreed--reluctantly, but she’d still agreed!--to give Emilie one of the twins. The Graham de Vanily family had England’s most expensive lawyers on retainer, who were already looking over the contracts that would allow Amelie to relinquish her parental rights.

Emilie burst through the front door, banging it open in her haste to tell her husband the good news.

“Emilie!” he said, his head jerking up from his crowded designing table in the front room. “What--”

“She agreed!” Emilie said, dancing into the cramped room. She did a swirl, lacing her fingers together in front of her. “Amelie is giving us one of her twins!”

Gabriel’s eyes turned frosty. “I thought I told you not to ask her.”

Emilie jerked to a stop. “You were serious?”

“Of course I was,” Gabriel said, his voice bordering on a snarl. “Are you insane? We can’t provide a decent life for a baby. The brand hasn’t taken off--”

“Oh, is all you care about your stupid brand?” Emilie said, whirling away from him. She wrapped her arms around herself, trembling. “I told you Papa would _help_ you with that, but you’re so _stubborn_ \--”

“I can break into the fashion world on my own,” Gabriel said, standing from his desk chair. “I have an opportunity, in Paris--”

“We can’t move to Paris!” Emilie said, slapping her cheeks. “I told Amelie we’d raise the boys together!”

“She can’t just give you a child, Emilie,” Gabriel said, crossing to her. “Be reasonable!”

“I want a baby!”

“And I don’t!”

Emilie stilled. There it was. The truth, finally out. Gabriel had been reluctant to try, but he’d never told her outright that their desires were incompatible. That everything their marriage had been built on was a lie.

He’d wanted children, once. They’d dreamed about starting a family together, back when she was young and impressionable. 

“You mean not right now,” Emilie said, clenching her fists at her sides.

“No.” Gabriel shook his head. “Not ever.”

Emilie sucked a breath over her teeth. Tidal waves of despair crashed over her head. She bent under the weight of them, her shoulders sagging. She cradled her face in her hands, tears slipping out between her fingers.

“Don’t cry, love,” Gabriel said, his voice meek. She felt more than heard him approach her. “You know I can’t bear it when you cry.”

Emilie didn’t care anymore what he could or could not bear. She couldn’t bear this, his denial of everything she’d ever wanted. 

She couldn’t explain her desire for a baby. It just was.

As she sobbed in front of her coldhearted husband, who couldn’t possibly understand, she tried to find the words to explain. The wonder of bringing a new human being into the world appealed to her. It was just like creating senticreatures, but permanently, and without pain.

But as much as that thought brought her pleasure, the idea of what that new life stood for brought her even more. She loved the idea of a tiny bit of her continuing into posterity. The immeasurable pride she knew she’d feel at her baby’s milestones and even most minor accomplishments would thrill her. _Her_ child would be beautiful, gorgeous even. _Her_ child would be an actor.

Emilie wasn’t pregnant. But Amelie was. Her sister had a devoted husband, a manor on a quiet street, and a baby. Two! Her life looked clean and pretty to Emilie. Meanwhile, she lived in a cramped one-bedroom apartment outside a bus stop, waiting for her husband to earn his own place in the world because he was too stubborn to accept help.

Emilie wanted to feel settled. She wanted to feel secure. And a baby would give her that sense of belonging, of purpose. She didn’t know what to do with her life.

She wanted to be needed.

And Emilie had tried so hard to conceive. Pregnancy was on her mind at all times. She knew what day she was ovulating, and when she and Gabriel were supposed to have sex. Every time they did, she spent two long weeks cataloguing potential changes in her emotions, her body, even her thoughts for signs that she had fallen pregnant.

Emilie imagined she had every single time. Tired? She was pregnant. Hungry? She was pregnant. Overly emotional? Definitely pregnant!

She constantly monitored her body and her feelings for signs she had a baby in her body at a time when she was trying very, very hard not to think about getting pregnant because she knew the obsession was slowly making her lose her mind.

Emilie had tried so hard at something that defined the quality of woman she was.

And she’d failed.

She dropped to her knees in front of Gabriel, wracked with keening sobs. She gasped convulsively, feeling her loss claw its way out of her throat. He took her into his lap, holding her tight against his rigid body. 

“Emilie,” he said, pleading with her in a broken voice. “Please. Please don’t cry.”

Gabriel couldn’t bear to see her cry. She knew this. She cried anyway, her chest tight and her eyes raw. He begged her to stop. She didn’t.

When he asked her to cease for the third time, Emilie had an idea.

Emilie was a Graham de Vanily. She always got what she wanted.

“If,” she said, raising her head to look him in the eye, her own vision blurring, “if we move to Paris, for the brand, will you let me have this baby?”

Gabriel stared at her. He drew a long, slow breath through his nose. “Yes.”

***

“You will love him eventually,” Emilie said to her husband, ecstatic on the taxi ride to the hospital. “I know you will.”

Amelie’s time had finally come. It was time for Emilie to meet her son.

Gabriel didn’t say anything. He stared mutely ahead, his arms folded and a muscle in his cheek twitching.

“And I know you didn’t like white and steel blue as a color scheme for the baby’s room back in our Parisian flat, but navy would have been too dark,” Emilie said, prattling on as the September rain drizzled down outside their car windows. She shifted in her seat, crinkling the tissue paper that Amelie’s bouquet of lilies were wrapped in. “Don’t you think so, Gabriel?”

“Of course, dear,” Gabriel said. And that was all he ever said when it came to her son.

“Don’t be like that,” Emilie said, smile undimmed. She patted his knee. “I know that deep down, you really want this, too.”

Gabriel sighed. “Of course, dear.”

Emilie frowned at him. She reached over and squished his cheeks between her hands. “Now you’re just being mean. A big old meanie.”

Gabriel shook his head. “We’re here.”

Emilie allowed him to open her car door, but only barely; she vibrated from raw excitement. She swept into Amelie’s rooms--the Graham de Vanily family had bought every room in the maternity ward for the evening--and squealed upon seeing her sister laying in a massive hospital bed. “Amelie!”

Gabriel hung back in the doorway, looking at his phone. He faded from Emilie’s awareness entirely.

“Emilie,” her sister said, blonde hair fanned out upon her fluffy pillows. She looked perfectly-coiffed, but the freshly-applied mascara couldn’t hide the tightness of her eyes. Her cheeks were covered in rogue, but not even that could camouflage the pale gauntness of them.

The babies were set aside in two waist-high, miniature beds on wheels encased in plastic. The newborns fussed and kicked, and one of them mewled, clearly disturbed by being forced out of his warm, comfortable womb.

Emilie wanted to go coo over her son, but she had to attend to her sister first. Emilie set the flowers in Amelie’s empty lap. “Oh, my dear, you look positively exhausted!” 

“That happens,” Amelie said coolly, “when you give birth.”

One of the boys squalled, arching his back despite being swaddled. Emilie hurried over to him. “Is this one mine?”

“Pick one,” Amelie said, waving a hand. She sagged into the pillows.

Emilie slipped her hands under her son’s head and under his bottom, scooping him up delicately. She cradled him against her chest, gently bouncing him in an effort to soothe his cries. “Sssh, sssh, you’re alright. You’re safe now.”

He was so very _small_. She didn’t know an entire person could fit in such a small package. A human in miniature. She extracted his hand from of the thin, cotton blanket to examine his fingers. They were the most delicate instruments she’d ever seen. His nose was miniscule. She wished she could see his feet, but she didn't know how to swaddle him again and wouldn't want to expose them to the cold of the rainy, September day.

As she held him, staring at the way his beautiful lips puckered around his whimper, she waited for the overwhelming love she was supposed to feel. But Emilie didn't feel the emotional attachment she expected. Instead, terror clutched her heart.

Emilie realized that her son was completely defenseless. One wrong move, and she would drop the child, and break his little bones. She’d split his soft skull open at the seams. She’d get frustrated, and shake him, rattling his brain.

Emilie was responsible for this tiny, helpless babe. Would she even know what to do with him once she got him home? She'd read all the parenting books she could get her hands on. But was she really ready to care for a baby? All by herself?

Emilie began to think taking him from her sister was a very bad idea. Her sister had nannies at her beck and call, and the rest of the Graham de Vanily family supporting her in London. Emilie had just herself in Paris. 

Herself. And Gabriel. What about Gabriel? She didn’t know if she could count on him to help.

Caught up in thought, Emilie didn't hear him approach. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, startling her. Thankfully, she didn't drop the baby. "Gabriel!"

He was staring at their son with a curious expression on his face. Emilie realized it was wonder. "He's beautiful," Gabriel whispered. "What's his name?"

Emilie looked down at the precious newborn in her arms, who had quieted down and was yawning. She nuzzled his blond peach fuzz with her nose, breathing in the scents of baby powder and ointment and something that was uniquely him. 

She felt it, then, the euphoria she'd expected. And a sense of possession, and purpose. This was her son. She was going to be the best mother she could be.

And Gabriel was by her side.

She turned to her husband, love swelling in her chest as she gazed at his face. Emilie had picked out two dozen names for their son, eventually settling on five. But she didn’t want to overwhelm Gabriel, just when he was finally responding the way she wanted him to. 

“Adrien,” she said, turning back to her son. He smacked his lips, pursing them, as if he were hungry and about to start sobbing again. He didn’t, merely sniffled. Emilie adored this fragile creature, more than any she’d ever made herself with the peacock miraculous. He was _hers_. He always would be. “Adrien Agreste.”

***

Gabriel hadn’t cried since he was a little boy. When he became a man, he renounced childish things like emotions. They only got in the way, making him vulnerable, like a reed without an anchor twisting in the wind. Feelings were juvenile things, and never appropriate. His own father had told him so.

But looking down at Emilie’s stasis pod--the pod she’d wanted to decorate, but had never gotten the chance--his eyes betrayed him.

“I miss you,” he said, his voice broken by disuse. Gabriel’s fingers trailed along her cheek. “I… I never thought… Oh, Emilie, why?” he said, choking on his dry throat. “Why did you leave me?”

He started again. “I told you…” His fists clenched of their own accord, manicured nails pricking his palms. Gabriel prided himself on being in control of everything, especially his own body, but his hands, like his eyes, betrayed him. He sneered at his comatose wife. “I told you not to use the peacock miraculous.”

Gabriel abruptly realized that his anger--anger that was sudden and inexplicable to him--was getting the better of him. _No. I am an Agreste. Agrestes comport themselves with dignity._ His own father’s voice echoed in his ears. 

So Gabriel drew a breath, and tried again to address the only important person to him. “But you always do exactly what you want to. I still admire that in you so much,” he said. “I never told you, but… that was what attracted me to you first. Like a moth to an inferno.”

Emilie was a Graham de Vanily. She had always gotten her way. He was lucky to have her in his life.

No, blessed. 

“You were right. About everything.” Gabriel swallowed, though the spit didn’t moisten his dry throat. “You were right. About Adrien.” 

The man pressed the back of his wrist to his lips, unable to go on for a moment. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I never wanted him. Even after that day in the hospital,” Gabriel said. “But he’s valuable. To me. To the brand. His body is perfect.”

Gabriel sniffed. He sank to his knees, heedless of the stains the garden would place on his suit. His hands gripped the edges of the pod. “But I don’t want to do this without you. How could you leave me alone with your son?”

Emilie didn’t answer. She never would.

**Author's Note:**

> Are you interested in reading or writing fanfiction? Are you looking for a community of like-minded and supportive people? Then join the [Miraculous Fanworks](https://discord.gg/mlfanworks) Discord server! 
> 
> We are always welcoming new members, and would love to see you. We offer a variety of conversations, from fic discussions to writing support to fanfiction prompts. We even have monthly server-wide events and group writing projects! 
> 
> Come join today!


End file.
